


Summer

by InterstellarVagabond



Series: Sophomore Jack AU [2]
Category: Samurai Jack (Cartoon)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond
Summary: Jack has made it through his sophomore year at a school for the criminally inclined, and now he's blowing off steam by taking a road trip to nowhere over summer. However, when he gets in the middle of a domestic dispute he finds himself in a world of trouble and guilt.





	Summer

Jack was fighting the urge to vomit, clutching his hands to his chest as if being unable to see them would wash the blood from them. He was hunched over in the dark, hiding in a warehouse from the events of the hour prior.

Jack’s solo road trip had started out calmly enough. He’d saved up his allowance for a while and bought a motorcycle. His parents were reluctant to let him go explore the world on his own, but somehow he’d managed to convince them. Now he was wishing he didn’t.

A month went by of just going from town to town, sleeping wherever he found a roof and doing odd jobs here and there to make money for meals. Then he came into a town in the grip of a local gang and stuck his nose where maybe it didn’t belong.

“Get out of my way, kid,” the man snarled, aiming a gun at Jack.

“No. You will leave her alone,” Jack said, still standing defensively in front of the woman that had been knocked to the floor. The sixteen-year-old had just been eating dinner in a small diner when a couple had gotten into a fight. The man had slapped the woman and thrown her to the ground, and Jack immediately ran to her defense.

“Move before I pop you both full of holes,” the man said.

“No.” Jack stood firm. There was a silent showdown for a moment before the man laughed and jerked his head towards the door. The meaning was obvious: let’s take this outside.

They went around back near the dumpsters, the man never taking his gun off Jack. Jack slowly reached for the pocket knife Scottie had given him back on his second day of school when he’d learned that self defense was becoming very important in his life.

“Alright, little man, let’s see if you can use that thing before I blow your brains out,” the man chuckled.

“I will die having made my peace with who I am,” Jack said, his voice sounding calmer than he felt. He really could die here. Without telling his parents how much he cared for them, without saying goodbye to his friends, without clearing his name and taking care of Aku.

“Bye bye, little man,” the man raised his gun slightly and Jack threw himself to the ground.

The fight that ensued went too fast for Jack to remember clearly. Somehow he’d managed to avoid any injury except a bullet graze to his shoulder. The only thing Jack remembered in perfect clarity was when he’d tripped the man and instinctively slashed his knife across his throat.

Now Jack was hiding still, tucked away in a nearby abandoned property where the windows were shattered and covered with dust. He could hear footsteps approaching. He knew he shouldn’t be found like this, covered in the blood of a man he’d….

“Hey, kid, are you there?”

It was the woman from the diner, walking carefully in her stiletto heels. She looked down at Jack with sadness and concern. “Oh boy, hey kid look at me. That’s not yours right?”

Jack shook his head tensely, gritting his teeth.

“Good. Good. Look kid, I know you’re panicking but it’s okay,” she bent down and helped Jack stand. “We gotta get out of here, okay? You can panic later right now I need you to walk.”

She took Jack to a trailer on the outskirts of town, where she washed his hands and face while he sat dead-eyed before her. She stripped him of the clothes that were bloody and put them in the wash. Then she wrapped him in a blanket and forced him to take a mug of hot tea.

Jack sipped the tea and then coughed when the sharp taste of alcohol hit his tongue.

“It’ll help you calm down,” she said. Her blue eyes met Jack’s, and he could see gratitude, concern, and guilt.

“You did good kid,” she said, stroking Jack’s hair. She pulled his bun out, which had become disheveled, and combed her fingers through his hair before putting it back up. “Don’t you worry, I’m gonna take care of this.”

“What?” Jack asked.

“It’s okay, Brett has a lot of enemies,” she said. “No one’s gonna bat an eye when he shows up dead. If anyone asks about you I’m going to say you ran away okay? Where’s the body?”

“…behind the restaurant,” Jack said.

“Okay…I’m going to go get it, you stay here until I come back okay?” she said, stroking Jack’s hair again. “It’s gonna be okay, kid.”

An hour passed. Another. Jack finished his tea and moved his clothes to the dryer. He wandered around the trailer looking at the photos of the woman smiling with friends. He saw a seashell windchime, a matching set of blue liberty china in the pantry. She had a handmade quilt stretched across her bed that Jack ran his hand over slowly. There was also a necklace with a clay cat on it resting on the nightstand. Finally he decided to get dressed and go look for the woman.

When he got to the place he’d left the body there were police cars all over. Jack hid in the shadows and peeked over to see two corpses being loaded onto stretchers. The first was the one he made. The second was the woman that had helped him.

“Yeah, looks like she killed him and his buddies came back for revenge. Messy stuff really, but at least there’s two less criminals in the world,” one of the officers said. Jack ran back to the trailer, tears in his eyes.

He spent the night there, and when he left in the morning he left with the bottle of vodka the woman had used for his tea and the cat necklace around his neck.


End file.
